penguin website FAQs

 

How can I get my work published by Penguin Books?

You'll find the answer to this question in the information about Publishing with Penguin...

. . . Okay I've read that, but I still want to know where can I submit my manuscript?

Did you read the information about Publishing with Penguin thoroughly? All the advice we can provide you about getting your work published can be found there. Unfortunately Penguin Group (Australia) is unable to supply you with a list of publishers who will accept unsolicited manuscripts - you will have to contact various publishers directly yourself. A listing is available on the Australian Publishers Association web site.

Why can't I find what I'm looking for in your catalogue?

You may have accidently typed or spelt a word incorrectly. Check that your spelling is correct and try again. If you're not quite sure of how to spell a title or an author's name, try typing in just the first few letters and then click on the search button - the word will be automatically truncated.

If you're searching for a specific title, an author name, a keyword, or for a subject, and you're sure the spelling is correct, then it can only mean there is nothing in our catalogue which meets the criteria for inclusion . . .

. . . So what's in your online catalogue exactly?

The online catalogue consists of 'currently available' material only - items that can be reliably supplied within 90 days. In other words, stock must be in our warehouse, or it must be currently on order as in the case of reprints and forthcoming publications, and all titles must be available for sale. Of course the catalogue will also contain only those titles which are published or distributed in this region by Penguin Group (Australia).

If you cannot find details of a specific book:

it may be out of stock with no replacement stock on order.

it may not yet have been published - 'forthcoming' titles are included in the catalogue, but only one month in advance.

it may be out of print and is therefore no longer available.

it may not be published or distributed by Penguin Books Australia in this region.
 

I'd like to contact one of your authors. How can I do that?

You will understand that the privacy of our authors and illustrators is important to Penguin. In order to protect that privacy we are not in a position to release personal contact details. However our readers are also important to us and to our authors and we are more than happy to forward correspondence. Please address your letters to: Authors c/o Penguin Group (Australia), PO Box 701, Hawthorn 3122, Victoria, Australia

We cannot though, take any responsibility for lost or damaged mail or lack of reply.

Sometimes when I'm looking around your site I get an NT type 2 error message in certain sections that says the service is not currently running. What's going wrong?

Every working weekday morning between 8.00 and 8.30am, for about 10 minutes, we stop our database server so that updated information can be uploaded to our web site. Because some sections of the site don't refer to the database you can still access many pages without errors - but any pages which need to access the database (such as the Catalogue Search or the What's New areas) will return an error during the short upload period. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause, but it is unavoidable if we are to provide accurate and current information. Just try again in 10 minutes and you should have no further problems.

I've tried using your catalogue search, but when I press the search button it just hangs. What's wrong with it?

Unfortunately this happens unavoidably in some versions of Internet Explorer (4.0 Beta Review 2, 3.02 not 3.01). It is known as "memory leak" and occurs whenever you submit a form; memory is used up needlessly and your browser or machine simply hangs. Microsoft has confirmed this as a known bug, but there is nothing we can do about it. You can only overcome it by upgrading to a later version of Internet Explorer.